AI (Although always being improved still not as good as Galactic Civilizations II).

Empty Space

Weak showing for the Dread Lord Event

Simplicity

Minor races have no reason to exist.

Negatives for Galactic Civilizations II...

Multiplayer

Modding options

With the points above I didn't have many negatives to say about Galactic Civilizations II, and both of which are in my opinion minor things. One of which, multiplayer with cheating options is available as a hot seat option.

Is this game as good as it could be? (Why or why not?)

The simple answer in my opinion, No! Again the harder answer why or why not...

A lot what I have to say here ties into the next point. Basically though it comes down to a few points. Performance, even on a decent computer from the year this game was released, it's recommended not to play on the largest maps with more than the core factions or the game is going to slow down. If one decides they're going to boost their planet stats by surrounding the planet with star bases, the game starts to slow to a crawl, so one can't utilize the full aspects of using star bases.

Planets, there is too much empty space or dead worlds. In Galactic Civilizations II, one could come up to a system with 4 or 5 decent planets, in this game it's almost non-existent. In every game there would be a few "Perfect" worlds class 26, normal planets. This was like finding the hidden treasure, in this game the only class 26 planets I find are extreme worlds.

All in all the game is there, a few things tweaking here or there and it could be.... On to the next point.

What could be done to improve this game? (Why or why not?)

Sorry in advance if this point get's a little wordy...

First off performance, I don't think there is an easy fix and personally I have come to accept it. There are limitations and only so much that can be done, so I'm not going to discuss this.

Next, game slow down. As the game really gets cranking a player spends a long time placing building, building ships, or attending to star bases during their turns. This not only brings a single player game to a crawl, but also can make things frustrating in multiplayer. Stardock has implemented splitting ones civilization into sections (commonwealths) which can help, however, this takes control of ones civilization and in itself can be frustrating. I suggest the following options...

Build queue for all buildings that a player could build on a planet, including terraforming tiles so the player could set the queue when they colonize or invade a planet and not have to revisit it ever unless the planet class is increased by an event. (edit: All buildings that not only are available, but also will be available in their tech tree. It will just start building said building when available, or activated in the queue once available.)

Allow a player to label planets into groups (outside of commonwealths) to be able to quickly tell all planets in this group that are queued to projects to switch to different project. Then just keeps building that project until the player switches to another project or one of the queued buildings becomes available. (edit: This would just apply to projects once all buildings have been cleared out of the queue.)

Edit: (Allow the special projects to just repeat until changed. This was originally in the game when projects were first put in, but then pulled out.)

Build queue for star bases and give priority for which star base gets upgraded first or just random. (edit: One builds a star base, however, is unable to fully upgrade it do to technology not unlocked or not enough resources/credits. Show all possible upgrades and have the player queue them as they either become available or can afford. Then also be able to rank star bases so one could specify which star base should be upgraded first. Along with this one could potentially then say only upgrade if I am banking x resources or x credits so that way it's not bankrupting you.)

Shipyard repeat queues and auto upgrade existing queue. (if I have constructor mk2 in queue and mk3 is available that is queued instead unless otherwise selected not to.)

All of the above could greatly increase the time a player spends on the game between turns and focus on more important things such as destruction of other factions. These issues are the main reason why many of my games are left unfinished.

Mercenaries... Make them useful later in the game. Right now after the first part of the game, the weapons/defenses on the mercenaries pale in comparison to anything the player can develop. If nothing else allow them to be upgraded. Click upgrade on them and then it gives an option to upgrade the mercenary for x resources y credits gets z in return.

Edit: This game is already very customizable, thank you, however, right now we don't get a full slot of the final mercenaries. I believe some of them have been removed from what was available at one time because of balance issues. Revisit this, bring them back or add enough final tier mercenaries to allow the player to have the maximum. Allow the player to pick which mercenaries will be available in the game. I very much dislike meeting the Bazaar only to find that my favorite mercenaries aren't available in this game and have to restart. Play a few more turns in the new game and run into the same issue and repeat.

Edit: (Ctrl+N - Re-generate the map with the same settings but different map.)

If all these points were met I would agree that Galactic Civilizations III would surpass Galactic Civilizations II by a long shot. Even if some of these points were met at we got everything that is missing from Galactic Civilizations II, Galactic Civilizations III would be better.

Final Thoughts...

All in all I do like the way Stardock continues to support their games and look forward to whatever comes in the future for Galactic Civilizations III. Keep up the good work and thanks for reading.

Thanks Seilore! Those are valid points. I have not fired up a new game since 3.2. I cheat horribly by giving myself a 5 class 25 home planet system all with precursor worlds. However I see that some points are good comparisons to GCII.

For example in the evolving of this game there is never a reason to upgrade your constructor with an exception of adding engines. The Game ship designer still utterly fails to build as well as old GCII did when you unlocked a new tech or maybe I am seeing through rose tinted glasses regarding this.

Presets might be a nice touch, FAST being one that reduced other components to make room for current hull/size and engine tech to maximize the speed of a ship. ATTACK would be one that reduces defenses in favor of more weapons. Personally I'd like to see ship designer sliders brought back but I know they team did not like them.

Anyway, I am happy to see you here still. Will you be joining me as an Elite Founder in Galactic Civilizations "Empire's Aflame" (not an actual title)? Alpha will be 1rst quarter 2020!!! (not an actual development date)

Thanks for taking the time to post this. I too think GalCiv 3 pales in comparison to 2. It can be hard find the words needed to explain it.

For me, it seems like what the devs developed as features, I find complicates the game in bad ways. I don't like having to manage planetary adjacency bonuses, I don't like tech specializations, and I don't like galactic resources (such as antimatter). I find that adjacency bonuses can sometimes make or break the game. Tech specializations don't work well as you can only research one, yet you can trade for others. The AI may offer to trade specializations, giving you an opportunity to reject it, but some times they gift it to you thereby preventing you from researching the specialization you wanted. Galactic resources is something that prevents you from building starbases, many planet improvements, and is often a requirement for the best ship designs the game offers you.

The game also has changed a lot over the years. What I learned a year ago might not be useful today. It feels like its still in beta. No point to get invested. I used to swear by the Durantanium Refineries, but now its no longer an option.

Ok I kind of disagree with auto repeat. The reason I keep bringing this up is I noticed that the devs seem to have a short memory, and will forget that a number of people find this adds micromanagement to the early, and mid game. Still like the idea of bringing this in as an option which is not on by default. This leads to the point that there needs to be both main menu, and planetary governor options. With planetary trumping main menu options. With a option to reset all planets back to default. This would cut down on micromanagement.

I like the idea of getting rid of dead world's. I would like to see extreme planets instead of dead world's.

I mis how many habital planets used to be in the game. I don't know if it's because of the number, or the fact that there were more per system.

I miss not being able colonise class 26 planets anymore. I don't like the fact that colinising a precursor world sometimes is not worth it because the class is to low. This should never be less than a class 14. Maybe make the precursor world's class 26.

I miss being able to turn a class 1-4 planet into a class 16 planet. I like being able to choose where I terriform my tile. I would like the last terriform option if it let me terriform untill I run out of tiles.

I mis being able to trade with minors.

I think that the food system for organics is broken. Ok in two it wasn't a problem having food to be a flat food. Except farms were upgradable, and everyone had the same. Now silicones produce one per2 1/2 months, and the yor build them. I also understand about what Brad said about food being perishable, but the same logic can be applied about food being harvested twice a year.

I miss individualised hubs.

The only faction from 2 that is missing that really changed the game is the drath. Instead of bringing back dead factions make a super instigator again. Give it to him as an ability, and give him war profiteering techs. The only thing I would change is make him where he can fight if you attack him.

I miss not having an option where everyone has to give techs in the galactic council.

I miss the jagged knife and the other two that went with them. I do think it would be a fair compromise to make this a pregame option to add this to the mega events. You didn't need to get rid of them you needed to fix them. One way to do this is convert their faction from dead world's. This doesn't fix the fact they need to be able to manage themselves. Even being able to remove structures except wonders. Matter of fact they should try to build super projects making the world's worth more when you retake them. The other factions need to remember what happened, and try to retake the planets. Yes rebuild the planets slowly enough to manage the empire. Research the government to do this, or change to the government to do this. If can't pick the biggest government, and create Commonwealth's with the rest.

I miss from galactic civilizations 2 where a random ai is Taunting you.

I like the gnn. I just think it could be better but reporting only on the civilizations you have met.

In two I could double click on a building to start building. I can't do this is n three. In two I could delete a building I'm working on.in the question by double clicking on that. I can't do that in three.

What is empires aflame.

I view the tech tree. Can you also make it so I can double click on a tech, and exit it to. Can you do that for fit sense this would help improve the game. I like the resources. It just feels like they all aren't needed.

Anyway, I am happy to see you here still. Will you be joining me as an Elite Founder in Galactic Civilizations "Empire's Aflame" (not an actual title)? Alpha will be 1rst quarter 2020!!! (not an actual development date)

I'm always lurking, I may not always be social as life gets in the way sometimes. Galactic Civilizations will always be my favorite Stardock game, until I find something better.

I wouldn't be adverse to repeatable projects, so long as there were nonrepeatable ones as well.

Personally, I would rather redo a que 10-20 turns on a hundred planets in the endgame, than to forget to upgrade planets in the midgame because of autorepeating projects, which as a micromanagement problem is worse IMHO.

Fortunately, it isn't a binary solution, don't see why they couldn't have both (or maybe a toggle button, like the one on shipyards, that, instead of not notifying you when it is empty, makes projects repeating.

One QOL thing I would like to see, is a way to make our lists, like starbases, smarter, where you could toggle them to show only the ones that have doable projects. That would streamline the midgame considerably.

I like a lot of what you have to say, Seilore. One point on which I slightly disagree is that there should be less empty space. I agree that it should be possible to have less empty space, but I like the option of having more, too.

For example, my current game is a 14-player game (single player) on a ludicrous-sized galaxy with rare stars, uncommon planets, abundant extreme planets, and common habitable planets. I'm more than 200 turns in and have a total of 8 planets--and the three other civs I've met have fewer than me (I got one from ideology, one from the merc that transforms a dead planet, and one from the Brindle's Observatory improvement; two are extreme).

I like the distances and the difficulty finding planets and resources. But sometimes, that doesn't appeal to me, and I play a much more dense map. I wouldn't mind the option of even more density--but I wouldn't want that at the expense of keeping scarcity as an option.

I agree with having a toggle for repeated projects on planets. I also really favor the idea of grouping planets.

But the biggest pet peeve I have: Mercenaries. Please, Stardock, fix Mercenary balance! Many of the tier-3 mercs cost more and give less than the tier-2 mercs. It is actually embarrassing, in my opinion, how inferior the quality of that expansion is simply because of how it has not been updated along with the newer content. It wouldn't take maybe more than a handful of hours to significantly improve Mercenaries, and with a few more hours than that, Mercenaries could be an exceptional game element. Right now, it is at times fun but more often annoying.